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Monday January 27, 2014 6:11 AM

In retrospect, Russian Cossack fighters never should have moved into the Caucasus region of
Chechnya in 1577. It was equally a “mistake,” to put it mildly, when the growing Russian Empire
began moving over the area in the Caucasus War in 1817.

Nor were the Chechen tribesmen really using their spirited heads when, during the Russian
Revolution of 1917, their Chechen states were opposed to both sides of the Russian Civil War.

So, nobody was terribly surprised when, in 1941, the Chechens were accused of fighting with the
invading German Nazi forces. The Chechens really should have known better.

In February 1944, Stalin deported all the Chechens, and a related tribe, the Ingush, out to the
far east of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, where hundreds of thousands of political prisoners were “
resettled” and about a quarter of them died.

So, if you’re wondering what all this talk about security in Sochi and for the Winter Olympic
Games means, just read over those paragraphs above, and all your questions will be answered.

Ahhh, Sochi … Forgive me if I take a few deep breaths. Sochi is a quite beautiful resort and
sanitarium center that looks nothing at all like the rest of Russia and, therefore, can be very
agreeable.

Tall cliffs slash into the Black Sea not far from where FDR and Stalin divided half the world at
Yalta after World War II. The town itself has what the Russians call pink, blue and yellow “old
bourgeoisie” mansions, and nice-enough beaches for swimming, although the beaches are rocky.

When I was there in 1971, the Russian women would wear their bras and panties to swim in.

There is an old Russian gambling proverb to the tune of, “If I’d known what I’d lost, I would
have gone to Sochi.”

So with Chechens and their partners-in-terrorism, the neighboring Dagestanis, only a few hundred
miles away, staring with consummate hatred at the Russians’ curious efforts, thinking how they
could best import terror from Moscow, Volvograd and Kiev to Sochi to sabotage the Olympics, and
with a mere $50 billion (the last Winter Olympics cost $7 billion) needed to build railroads,
hotels and sports centers, Sochi was a natural place to invite the sporting stars of the world to
come and get to know Russia.

It is also smack in the middle of the Mafia zone of Russia (Georgia, Chechnya, Dagestan), which
means untold wealth for President Vladimir Putin on down.

Already, the real danger in Sochi has been loudly heralded from mountain to snow-covered
mountain in the Olympics region. In fighting with the Muslim tribesmen of the upper Caucasus for so
many centuries, the Russians managed to create the worst possible threat to the world — and to
themselves.

The original moderate Islam, or Sufi Islam, or even secularism, celebrated by the early Chechens
and others, has turned, under the Russian yoke, into the kind of radical Islam now threatening the
entire world.

These Muslims killed 380 people in an elementary school in Beslan in 2004 and 170 in a Moscow
theater in 2002. They are calling the games “satanic dancing on the bones of our ancestors.”

As the days approach for the opening of the Olympics, with 60,000 Russian security men and women
on the watch every moment, outrages already have occurred. Russian officials have said the “Black
Widows” of the Chechens already are inside Sochi, ready to blow themselves up or to kill. The U.S.
is sending ships to the Black Sea in case there is any need for an evacuation of Americans.

So far as anyone can remember, this is the first time that any Olympic Games has been held so
close to such a bleeding insurgency or a volcano about to explode. In addition, the skating
facility is 29 miles outside of Sochi, and other venues also are scattered around. One might bet
that the safest place would be on the rocky beaches with the ladies in their bras.

Yet, as easy as it is to be critical or sarcastic, there is reason to give the Russians credit,
too, for their extraordinary efforts to stage the games.

Here, we see not the Russians sending political prisoners to their gulags, but an administration
run by Putin’s FSB security men trying to win over the world by fair-and-square sporting
competition. We know they have been training their waiters and waitresses, chefs, hoteliers and
anyone who works in public to be courteous, patient and civil. And what a change that will be.

Part of Russia is trying to be modern and decent, as they perceive the West. Part of it is still
taking payoffs from the ice-skating rink.

Whatever happens, “Sochi” is going to be a warning and, we surely hope, a genuine harbinger of
things to come in Russia.